Mitch Ellerman
Mitch Ellerman defeated John Smith in a match between arguably the two best barbox 8-ball players in the state to capture first place at the Desert Classic Tour’s June event on the 1st and 2nd at Stingers Sports Bar.
As is always the case, the field in this one was a tough one. The forty player field included eight of the top ten players on tour, with only Scott Frost and Manny Chau missing.
Saturday matches were tough on both sides of the board, and a number of top players would not make it to Sunday play. #2 ranked Nick Deleon dropped matches to Gary Koschnik and Jerry Stuckart on Saturday. #4 ranked Bobby Emmons also failed to reach day two after a “three and out” performance. #10 rated Mike Sandoval had an even worse day with two straight losses in his first two matches.
Only eight players would earn places in Sunday’s matches, with four players undefeated and four players who already had one loss.
Sunday winner’s side matches saw tour points leader Mitch Ellerman scoring an 8-5 win over John Smith and DCT tour director Dennis Orender scoring a 6-2 win over tour newcomer Jason Stanley.
On the one loss side, Tres Kane eliminated Tucson’s Mike Hamman 6-4 and B player Rick Armbrust scored a 5-0 win over Brett Huth. The next round of one loss side play saw Kane fall to B player Jason Stanley 5-5 and John Smith send Armbrust to the seats with a hill-hill 6-4 win. John Smith then eliminated Stanley in 4th place with a dominating 6-0 scoreline.
Back on the winners side, Ellerman was playing Orender in an 8-6 race. Orender took a 1-0 lead and Ellerman had to come with back to back “miracle shots” to avoid a 0-2 scoreline. After Ellerman knotted the score at 1-1, he cruised to an 8-3 win and the hot-seat.
The semi-final match between John Smith and Dennis Orender saw Orender holding early 1-0 and 2-1 leads before Smith took control to win the match 6-3.
The final match was a true contrast in styles as Ellerman has never found a reason to use more than one practice stroke, and Smith brings a very methodical approach to the table and won’t pull the trigger until he knows exactly what he wants every ball to do. On this day, it was Ellerman’s rapid fire game that controlled things. Ellerman won the first three racks and never trailed in the match. Smith got back within two racks twice, but a 5-3 Ellerman lead quickly became an 8-3 Ellerman win.
The Desert Classic Tour will be at Skip & Jan’s on August 17th and 18th for their next event - a barbox 10-ball event.
